White Man's Problems Part 10

Hansall sat in a chair next to Linda at the grownup table. Waitresses in wench costumes hustled around, pouring water and Coca-Cola from plastic pitchers. "Choice of chicken fingers or Caesar salad with chicken," the wench said. She was older, certainly past retirement age, as were most of the people who worked in the town. She was especially ugly, Hansall thought. He considered what these wenches were paid and whether they had a union, and if so, what freak show those union meetings must have been.

"Ye olde chicken fingers?" he said, looking at Linda for a laugh.

The wench was not amused. "Never heard that one before."

All six adults ordered the Caesars. Miss Barlow asked for a pitcher of Diet c.o.ke, and when the waitress returned, the group held their plastic drink cups up like d.i.c.kensian children asking for more.

"Can I get some water, also?" Hansall said after his cup was full. It was something he'd asked in restaurants a million times before, not so much a request as an instruction. He turned to Linda, and said, "You know, I'm not even so sure how realistic any of this is."

The old wench said back to him, "I just gave you Diet." She pointed at his plastic cup.

"Yes, and I would like a gla.s.s of water, too." He tried to walk it back. "Please."

Once he was satisfied the wench was complying with his wishes, he returned his attention to Linda. "I just gave you Diet. Can you believe she just said that?"

"I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused."

Hansall laughed in relief. The rest of the women did not make eye contact with him. It was, by now, a familiar feeling.

"Well, it is hot, huh?" Linda finally said to the table.

The rest of the ladies nodded and went back to their conversations. Mrs. Coyle rose and headed toward the kids' table, her instinct for misconduct triggered like a clock-radio alarm in the morning.

"You were saying?" Linda said.

"Huh?" Hansall said.

"You were saying you don't think this is realistic?"

"Well, no," he said. "It's just, with the plastic and the french fries, and the pretend Patrick Henry...you know. Maybe it's just that I was a history major and it bugs my sense of something."

"I was a history major, too," she said, her voice on the upswing.

"Really, where did you go?"

"Just to Fullerton," she said. "But I love history."

He waited for her to ask him where he went to school, but she didn't. He took it for insecurity, that she was self-conscious about her education.

"What did you specialize in?" he said.

"We did a lot of American History-that's why this is so exciting to me. I've never been back here."

The afternoon ended with an elaborate staged argument in the public square about the free rights of Englishmen, resulting in an almost-lynching of a tavern dweller who had cursed the Crown. Hansall remembered he had not put sunblock on Will. At four forty-five they made their way toward the exit, which was, of course, by the Gift Shoppe. The teachers granted everyone fifteen minutes to search for souvenirs.

It was a modern store, fresh with beige floor, beige shelves, and beige lighting. Pencils, snow globes, and T-s.h.i.+rts were intermixed with specialty calendars with photographs of The Beautiful Colonial Village of Williamsburg at Night, silver spoons, printed china, stuffed bears with hats reading Grandma and I love Williamsburg. Will wanted to buy an authentic colonial pipe with a stem reaching eighteen inches, and after a minor protest, Hansall relented. Will also made him try on, and then insisted he buy, a three-cornered hat. Declan and Harry each chose a paperweight. As Hansall stood in the checkout line with the boys, Jobie tugged at his s.h.i.+rt.

"Can I have my money?"

"Well, show me what you want to buy," said Hansall.

"I need ninety-five dollars."

"Whoa, whoa. Ninety-five dollars? What's ninety-five dollars?"

Jobie produced a box set of fifteen commemorative handcrafted silver spoons, the choice of a real Williamsburg devotee.

"Hey, no. C'mon, man. That's too much, these are too much."

Jobie looked up at him in protest.

"Dude, that would be spending most of your money. You have to save some of it."

"Yeah, but..."

"What?"

"It's my money." Jobie said it with firmness. Hansall felt a wave of accusation, as though he were the boss man withholding a miner's wages at the company store. Jobie's big black eyes were on him. His bangs were chopped severely, giving the appearance of a child who called for no ceremony, no grand expense. It's my money. The kid was right about that. Hansall was tempted to give Jobie the gla.s.sine bag and tell him to go nuts. It was his f.u.c.king money, after all. Hansall did the math quickly in his head. If he bought the spoons, how much would be-was there sales tax? Wait, wasn't this whole Revolutionary War business about tax anyway? He concluded the kid would have about forty-five bucks left. That could be enough for the rest of the trip.

Mrs. Coyle was suddenly next to them. "What's the problem?" she said.

"Jobie wants to buy these spoons. They're ninety-five bucks. I told him they're too expensive."

Mrs. Coyle took over. "Jobie, that's too much. You won't have enough money left, honey. Go find something else." The boy turned to go, but not before shooting back a final glance.

"You have to just say no," Mrs. Coyle said after Jobie walked off. "They're idiots sometimes." She gave Hansall a smile. "But they're cute."

After another night battle with the green drapes and the fading darkness, Hansall faced the Marriott's morning buffet. His three boys were already eating their bacon-only breakfast when he arrived at the table. A waitress dropped off coffee and orange juice, much as a postal worker drops off the mail. The pans over the Bunsen burners at the buffet table held piles of sausage, scrambled eggs, and other familiar breakfast fare. Having grown up in Connecticut, he a.s.sociated grits with being somewhere against his will. Hansall hated Texas, Florida, and Atlanta, was not excited by Nashville, and did not see the wonder of Charleston.

After breakfast, Hansall squeezed in next to Will, who was against the window in the midbus range he preferred. Linda sat a row in front of them, her daughter pressed up against the gla.s.s. Hansall looked at Will, who was strapped into earphones and watching his iPhone. On the screen, a group of rappers gesticulated at the camera. The lead singer smiled, displaying a solid gold grill. All over the bus, kids were riveted by LED screens. Hansall's phone buzzed.

"Put him on," said Johanna.

"Here. It's your mom."

He handed the phone to Will, who removed his headphones, smiled, and said, "Hi, Mama."

Hansall cringed at the way Will addressed Johanna. He drifted into watching one of the bus' monitors.

Mrs. Coyle had a DVD of National Treasure playing, and the opening credits rolled with lush images of DC. Hansall leaned up to talk to Linda.

"Is this supposed to get them to think about history?"

"I think it's supposed to keep them quiet," she said.

"Have you ever watched this movie? It's ridiculous..."

She nodded. "I know."

He moved up to the seat next to her and made himself comfortable. "I don't know what happened to Nicolas Cage."

"Right?" she said. "Remember Moonstruck?"

They moved through their favorite Nic Cage movies, surmising that at some point he started doing it for the money. During a lull in the conversation, he held up the gla.s.sine envelope with Jobie's cash. "Are you holding money for any of the girls?"

"No," said Linda.

"It's so weird."

"It must be the parents. Have you spoken to them?"

"No. I never met them."

"But, have you spoken to them? You know, when Jobie calls home?"

Hansall felt his face burn. "Oh, I've been letting the kids call home on their own."

"Lucky you." She waved toward the girls in the back. "I have to give a full report every night. I haven't been to sleep before midnight."

"Do you know Jobie's parents?"

"Not really." Her voice trailed off. "I saw them once. I've heard they're very nice. I think they do something with computers."

"Is he...what, j.a.panese? I'm so bad with that, sorry."

"His mom is Vietnamese. His father is German, I think."

"Ah," he said. They both nodded politely, at what he wasn't sure. "I guess they're worried he'll blow the money."

"Guess so."

"I can see why. He wanted to buy a set of spoons for a hundred and thirty bucks."

"A set of spoons?" she giggled.

"For his mom. Williamsburg spoons."

"That's so cute."

"Are you kidding?" he said. "She would have killed him and me."

"Oh, I don't know. Any mom would love it a little bit."

"Maybe so," he said. "But Asians and Germans are usually tough with a buck." When he said it, he worried he had gone a bit too far over the boundaries of political correctness. But it was a calculated risk, he thought, the kind white Americans make every day when entering into a new relations.h.i.+p. As he got older, he tested such ground early in conversations, rather than treading lightly for months only to find that the other person-women, really-were bleeding hearts. In his experience, liberal women also tended to be very loud in the morning, and he couldn't deal with loud in the morning.

He was a libertarian, and this leaning got stronger as he aged. He saw government as inept, taxes as legalized theft, and laws as intrusive. Never much of a believer to begin with, he had been a nominal Democrat in college because it helped one get laid, at least at Brown, at least when he was there. His feelings calcified as he matured, and his sense of the meaningless of politics grew the way bread goes stale and then one day is gone.

The sun was still in the sky when the Capitol Building appeared on the horizon. The bus left the interstate and pulled into DC. Everything seemed of granite, lending a permanence to its sense of place. That's how it seems to the untrained eye, thought Hansall. He remembered his friends who moved to DC after college speaking only of Happy Hours in Georgetown bars. On the street near an empty manhole cover a white utility van from the phone company or the electric company or the sewer company was parked with "Blazing Hot Internet" advertised on its side.

"Wait, look!" said Mrs. Coyle, jumping up and pointing out the window where the Was.h.i.+ngton Monument stood like a postcard. "Repeat after me," she yelled to the kids. "Standing at five hundred fifty-five feet and three-quarter inches..." A smattering of voices repeated the phrase back. "C'mon, let me hear you," she said, and then continued, "the world's largest freestanding masonry structure..." She paused: "The Was.h.i.+ngton Monument." She beamed. The children, catching on now, yelled, "The world's largest freestanding masonry structure...The Was.h.i.+ngton Monument."

"Every time!" she said. "We say it every time we see it, ok?"

The Keybridge Marriott was not much different than the Williamsburg Marriott. To be sure, there were urban touches: the front door was more active, busboys schlepped bags, and people whom Hansall a.s.sumed were lobbyists hustled through the lobby. The adults lectured the kids not to wander around unsupervised. When Hansall opened the door to his room, he faced the same forest-green drapes. The minibar situation was no different, signaling to him the power within the chain of policies of bulk-purchasing room finishes. His hopes for airplane bottles of scotch, peanut b.u.t.ter cups, overpriced cashews, Red Bull, and cans of Bud Light were dashed.

He unpacked only his toiletry kit. He could not, would not, face the room and insomnia, lightening darkness, and those drapes-those drapes-again. He slapped on aftershave, brushed his teeth, stopped down the hall at the boys' room to make a compulsory plea that they call their mothers, and went to the bar.

It was outfitted in minimalist orange and black tables. The menu featured sus.h.i.+, steamed dumplings, and Thai salads. The servers were dressed in orange s.h.i.+rts, black slacks, and floral vests. Hansall's mind went again to the decision-making Marriott middle managers. Odds were, every three years they undertook a new theme. "Let's give it a contemporary feel," he heard them say. He saw the budget meetings and the suppressed creativity, perhaps even a maverick within the company pus.h.i.+ng for a sus.h.i.+ place. Perhaps the man who spearheaded the innovative restaurant was seen as too big a spender, too ready to go half-c.o.c.ked into bizarre variations, which served no purpose other than to dilute the brand.

Through his first two scotches Hansall had been watching a plumpish girl two seats away. When she ordered her third vodka and tonic, Hansall said, "Hope you're driving, because I'm not."

She laughed. "Not me, I'm stuck here."

He slid over to the seat next to her. "Me too. Business?"

"Sales trip."

"Don't look so happy about it."

"You have no idea." She crunched her ice. "Day eight."

"Yeah, well, I can beat that."

"Ha. Tell me and tell me slow."

"Field trip." Off her raised eyebrows, he said, "Fifth grade."

"Oh G.o.d, kids? From where?"

"California. Santa Monica." She lit up, excited for some reason about Santa Monica.

He ordered two more drinks and the discussion began. He moved like a great running back on a power sweep, sizing up the defense, feinting here and there, applying just enough speed. She was past her window on the looks side, and definitely heavy. This was ok, though-he didn't mind heavy when he was drunk. In his experience, big girls liked to f.u.c.k. One drink gave way to three, then five. She put her knee into his thigh and pulled it back. He mentioned his empty room. When he got the right answer, he asked for the check. The tab was one hundred and ten bucks. He decided he didn't want a bar bill on his credit card, for fear it would come up in his deposition, so he reached for cash. All that was left in his wallet was a ten and two ones.

"Do you want me to get it?" said the girl, whose name was Meredith, fis.h.i.+ng for her purse. "I ate before you got here."

"That's crazy talk." He found Jobie's gla.s.sine envelope and left six twenties on the bar.

Hansall came out of a fitful sleep with his left arm was pinned under Meredith's upper body. He saw his face in the mirror from across the room. The air conditioner was on too high, but he didn't want to deal with it, so he stayed beneath the bed's checkered cover and light-yellow sheets. Having rolled over, Meredith's back was to him. He looked at her and was grossed out. He went to his back and stared at the ceiling. His head uncontrollably veered to the right and he saw the drapes. He rolled back toward Meredith, felt the round of her b.u.t.tocks against him, and felt himself rising. Hansall tried to caress her hair, but it felt like steel wool. He grabbed down along her side and felt her fles.h.i.+ness. He pushed his hands between her legs, licked his fingers and parted her lips. She groaned and reached back for his head, putting him in a sort of forearm headlock.